


oh crap, a pop-up

by varlovian



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alpha Derek, Canon Compliant, Canon-Typical Violence, Cultural References, Derek POV, Gen, Hijinks & Shenanigans, Holding Hands, Humor, M/M, Mild Language, No Angst, Pre-Slash, Season/Series 03, Snark
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-18
Updated: 2013-07-18
Packaged: 2017-12-20 11:37:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,103
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/886824
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/varlovian/pseuds/varlovian
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Derek bails Stiles out of trouble. Again. This time with hand holding.</p>
            </blockquote>





	oh crap, a pop-up

**Author's Note:**

> This fic is 5% prompt fulfillment, 20% holding hands, 30% obscure pop-culture and gaming references, 45% kicking alpha butt and 100% Derek and Stiles being snarky assholes ~~in love~~.
> 
> There's a reason I failed maths.
> 
> (The prompt was "pole", if anyone was wondering. Also, I was given this prompt last year by my darling beta, so any throwbacks to certain pole torture scenes in the show are unintentional.)
> 
>  **EDIT:** ( 18-07-2013) Found a few spelling mistakes, and one truly confusing sentence. These have now been fixed. :)

“Oh my god, what the _hell was that?_ ” Stiles screeched, right in Derek’s ear. Derek scowled at him fiercely, satisfied by the way Stiles’ face crumpled at the look.

“That,” Derek began, slowly, in an attempt to hold in his frustration, “was the Alpha Pack.”

Stiles raised his eyebrows. “I could hear the capitalization in that. Huh.” His train of thought changed track with what Derek swore was an audible _click_. “What are we doing this time?”

“What we do every time.”

Stiles snorted. “Take over the world?”

“ _What?_ ”

“Nothing. Pop culture reference that you, in your endless wolfy solitude, wouldn’t understand.”

“I’ve seen Pinky and the Brain, Stiles,” Derek grumbled, because he resented the notion that he was a monosyllabic hermit. He went to school. Hell, he went to _college._

He didn’t exactly graduate, but that was his business.

“That,” Stiles said seriously, placing a hand on Derek’s shoulder, “is _so_ _awesome_.”

“Get your hands off of me,” Derek snapped. Stiles removed his hand, raised them both in submission.

“Has anyone ever told you that you have severe anger issues?”

“The correct question to ask is: have any of those people _survived?_ ” said Derek with a snarl. He looked about himself, trying to determine what the Alphas were so interested in. They were smack-bang in the middle of Beacon Hills’ industrial district. There was nothing there. Nothing except him and Stiles, that is.

It made no sense. They followed the Alphas, not the other way around. Well, Derek followed Stiles who followed the Alphas. Stiles, who thought it was a bright idea to seek them out _without backup_.

“You try and scare me, but the moment something happens you’re all, ‘I’m the Alpha, rawr!’” Stiles clawed the air with both hands. “Kind of defeats the purpose if you want me dead.”

“I don’t want you dead,” said Derek, on his last remaining nerve. “I want you to _shut up_.”

“So touchy.”

“Stiles!”

“ _Fine._ ”

He crossed his arms over his chest and slumped over.

Derek rolled his eyes. “You’re a gigantic child.”

Stiles slumped further.

He knew he was being a dick but he didn’t care. Stiles deserved it. He got them into this mess by provoking the Alpha Pack and Derek—Derek was supposed to be getting them out of it.

Which he couldn’t do while they were arguing.

Damn it.

Turning back to Stiles felt like swallowing acid and feeling it eat away at his insides. Just because it healed didn’t make it painless. Derek did it anyway.

“We can’t just sit here,” he told Stiles, or the reluctant line of his body more like. “ _Stiles.”_

Stiles sat up and started to speak, only no words came out. He looked at Derek, shook his head and shrugged helplessly as if to say, _wow, I can’t speak anymore, would you look at that?_

The little shit.

Derek was beginning to think that getting into a fight with the Alpha Pack was preferable. Or dedicating his life to finding a way to travel back in time and warn himself, on pain of death, never to befriend Stiles Stilinski. Of course, thinking about that led him to wonder what else he could change if time travel were possible—something he tried not to do, lest it trigger his ‘severe anger issues’.

“I don’t have time for this,” Derek said icily, leveling a glare at Stiles, who leered at him. He pushed off into a loose crouch and craned his head around the corner. When he detected nothing, he started the shift.

There was an itch in his bones, a tickling warmth that taunted him, and the only way to cure it was to scratch it. His fangs and claws lengthened, eyes flashing red in the blue-black shadows that surrounded them.

Derek could sense Stiles watching him from the periphery of his vision. He catalogued his elevated heart rate, his slack mouth and the short, sharp intake of breath when Derek turned his head.

“Be ready,” he told Stiles. The animalistic side of the wolf, the Alpha, stirred behind his lips, fangs biting into the wet flesh of his mouth to quell the growl building in his chest. He had control—he and the wolf were one in the same, after all, bonded since birth—but that control was slipping. Only when Stiles nodded and looked down at his hands was he satisfied.

The gesture was a textbook act of submission. Derek would wonder, later, if Stiles knew.

He wasn’t lying earlier when he said there wasn’t any time. No sooner had Derek shifted than a large, black shadow cut across the moon’s waxing glow, sealing them in the dark. Derek felt Stiles scrabble for a hold; he found one in the worn material of his leather jacket.

“ _Derek,”_ Stiles hissed, terrified.

Had Derek been a new wolf, unaccustomed to the sound of human fear, he’d have truly believed that Stiles’ heart was about to burst out of his chest, it was beating so fast.

Derek wanted to say ‘ _I thought you couldn’t talk’_ , but didn’t. Every sound, including his own voice, brought the rogue Alpha closer. He shifted his weight instead, leaning into Stiles’ grip on his sleeve.

It was strange, holding out his hand to Stiles. He could barely see it in the darkness that surrounded them, the faintest outline against the black. When Stiles didn’t move, Derek looked up to see him staring at it in trepidation, like he thought he might scratch his eyes out with his—

Claws.

Right.

Before he could retract them, Stiles let go of his jacket sleeve and placed his hand on top of Derek’s, palm-to-palm. He entwined their fingers together and squeezed when Derek glanced at him in shock.

Stiles’ hand was clammy but warm, and the physical contact relaxed them both. Derek didn’t have to worry about where Stiles was anymore—he could feel him, anchored by his side. He wondered if Stiles felt the same. They’d have to separate, of course, if the Alpha decided to attack. Derek hoped it wouldn’t come to that.

Not that he’d have much choice if it did.

He craned over until Stiles’ unruly hair was beneath his chin, head tucked into Derek’s chest. There was a method to the madness, which Stiles seemed to understand, much to Derek’s surprise. Stiles’ body was a hard line down Derek’s front, legs curled beneath them. Standing side-by side, they were the same height; the way they were right then, Stiles slotted perfectly in the negative spaces.

Derek angled his mouth so his lips were near the shell of Stiles’ ear. The younger man’s hair tickled his skin, soft and wispy, so different to the buzzcut he used to have five— _six?_ —months ago.

“Close,” he whispered, voice pitched low and soft, barely there. “Stay close.”

“ _Derek_ —”

Derek cut him off, not unkindly. “Stiles. Just do it.”

“Okay,” Stiles said faintly, the word muffled against Derek’s chest. He drew a shaking breath.

Derek pulled away from Stiles and stood. The only point of contact that remained between them was their clasped hands. Stiles stuck close to him, their shoulders brushing, free hand coming up to curl around Derek’s bicep. Derek left it—the more Stiles felt at ease in their situation, the less annoying he’d be.

Derek had learned that lesson the hard way, by spending two hours paralyzed but alive by virtue of a very nervous, very cranky Stiles. Two hours of his life he would never get back. _Two whole hours._

A little hand-holding was a cakewalk in comparison.

Getting past the Alpha was a painful affair, involving three disabled security cameras, the local drug lord and a collection of conveniently-placed barbed wire fences.

It didn’t really, but the truth was boring.

Derek’s attention was divided between fighting the Alpha—one of the twins—and keeping tabs on Stiles, who spent the entire duration of the fight with his back against the wall. At one point, when Derek was knocked off his feet, Stiles let out a distressed sound. It was enough of a distraction for the Alpha to stab Derek in the midsection with something long and hard. It cut deep, but Derek didn’t have time to wedge it out. He landed a fly kick to the Alpha’s torso, slashed his claws across his throat, and headbutted him.

“Oh my god,” said Stiles after the headbutt. “What are you even? A werewolf or a krogan?”

Derek snickered and Stiles reeled a bit in surprise. Before Stiles could call him out on recognizing the reference, his opponent sprang Derek from behind and tore at his back, pinpricks of pain where the sharp, elongated nails cut through skin and flesh and muscle. Derek roared, but the pain was fleeting. He turned in the twin’s grasp, met his glowing eyes with crimson in his own and grinned wickedly.

When Derek spoke, however, he spoke to Stiles.

“ _I’m the Alpha,_ ” he spat, and kneed the other werewolf in the groin.

He went down hard. Derek kicked him for good measure, and walked over to where Stiles stood watching, slack-jawed.

“Holy shit.”

“Rawr,” said Derek, around a smirk.

“Holy fucking shit.”

Stiles looked at him like he was the second coming of Thorin Oakenshield.

Derek snorted. “You ready to get out of here?”

Off to the side, the Alpha twin groaned. Stiles took one look at him, one look at Derek, and one look at the creepy alleyway they had emerged from and nodded vigorously.

They fled to Stiles’ jeep, parked about a block away, sitting there with all the stealth of a neon sign saying ‘I SHOULD NOT BE HERE’. Derek headed for the passenger side door.

“Uh, you might want to get that out,” Stiles said, motioning to Derek’s abdomen.

Derek looked down, frowning, like the idea he’d forgotten something irritated him beyond belief. In truth, he was more irritated that Stiles wasn’t worshipping at his altar anymore with that wide-eyed stare, that they were already back to their regularly scheduled program of pissing the hell out of each other.

Then he saw what Stiles was pointing at.

“Shit.”

Embedded in his side was a thick, metal pole—the same pole he’d been stabbed with not ten minutes ago. Blood slicked its edges, dribbled out the sides. _His_ blood. The vertigo hit him like a sucker-punch.

“Dude,” said Stiles.

Derek ignored him, gripped the metal pole with shaking hands, and pulled on it with all his might; it came free with some resistance from his already-healing body. The pain was short and sharp but intense, and he hunched in on himself as he felt the layers of flesh knitting back together.

Stiles stared at him, incredulous.

“Dude,” he repeated, totally dumbstruck. “You just got impaled by a pole for me and didn’t even realize.”

He grunted in response, not in the mood to listen to the obvious. Stiles’ face broke out into a grin. Derek didn’t care to ask what he found so _bloody amusing_ about this situation all of a sudden, but the look he gave Stiles must have conveyed his disbelief because the teen snorted and, for the second time that night, reached out to place a hand on Derek’s shoulder.

“You care,” was all he said, around the laugh that bubbled in his chest. “About me. You care about me.”

Derek raised an eyebrow and straightened to his full height, squaring his shoulders. “I really, really don’t.”

Stiles placed a hand to his heart in mock-hurt, but he couldn’t keep the look of anguish on his face for long. It bled back slowly into the wide, cocky grin he’d been wearing before. It was idiotic.

Everything Stiles did was idiotic. Because Stiles was an idiot.

“Can we go back to the part where you care about me? That was awesome. Can we hold hands again?”

Idiot. Idiot. Idiot.

Derek wanted to walk away, or to tell Stiles to get out. Only that wasn’t so easy. For one, his body was still healing, albeit internally; for the other, they were in Stiles’ car. Sure, _he_ could get out of it, but that’d mean he’d have to walk back to the loft. Getting impaled by the Alpha Pack made Derek lazy. (Also, hungry.)

Derek was the stranger here. He was at the mercy of Stiles’ hospitality, and they both knew it.

He sighed, loudly. There was something in Stiles’ easy expression, something that transcended the snark, banter and jagged edges of their usual partnership.

Something that looked a lot like hope.

 _Fuck it,_ Derek thought, and held out his hand.

**FIN.**

**Author's Note:**

> The whole “but the truth was boring” joke originated from a line in the Mass Effect series. I adapted it to this situation for funsies. It might also be my personal headcanon that Derek and Laura played the first two games in New York, got into deep discussions (read: fangirling) about what they want to happen in the third, and will be a bonding point between Stiles and Derek in the future, once he discovers that Derek never started the last game and proceeds to badger him until he does.
> 
> Then they get into deep discussions (read: heated debates) about the controversial ending.
> 
> I... may have thought about this a little too much.
> 
> (I may also be planning an eventual Mass Effect/Teen Wolf fusion AU where Scott is the first Human Spectre, Stiles is the Normandy’s snarky-ass pilot, and Derek is the ship AI who keeps playing pranks on him whenever Stiles complains about his presence, coming to a head when Derek downloads into a mobile platform that just so happens to be drop-dead gorgeous. Then sex, because fandom commands it.)
> 
> Oh, and commenting is a thing! So is kudos! Have at it, if you like.


End file.
